People often say I exaggerate life. I’m not sure that’s possible really. It’s much bigger than we imagine, and there are so many unseen realms intersecting at any given moment! And the setting alone is an endlessly enormous room which we have barely learned to live in! Each of us are novels God’s been wanting to write forever!

Hello again Europe,
Just checking the pulse of your heart! Glad to be back! I should address you more properly, but today i feel casual, thankful, awake and happy to see you again friend. Let’s just be ourselves with one another. I enjoy you. And I think we all need one another now.
We are all precarious right now, so let’s be kind to one another for another train ride or so….let’s share ferris wheels and zoos and things which remind us of life. I always love it, when we are alive together, just listening, beholding in thanks.
I always feel welcomed here. People whistle in Belgium-a good sign. I always notice that, and their curiosity about other. Talked to about ten people on the train up, and in several different languages. I like speaking other languages when jet lagged-makes it more poetic, and you don’t care as much about mistakes! The lady on the train held suitcases from sliding for a Spanish family, and the fellow across from me told me all his favorite spots and festivals, and invited me for dinner this week.
Kindness cannot be overrated in these days. Gentle curiosity in language and action. Tenderness, what a great state of being, even, is in short supply these days!
Once, my wife Amy fell off her bike here, literally nine people came to help, including an old man with a cane! Kindness combined with a curiosity about other are helpful attributes these days!
First things i always notice in belgium: people whistle, they don’t make straight lines, and they are genuinely curious about other. Makes sense Pieter Bos (the late nations theologian from Holland) called belgium, “creative friend”. Feels true to me at least. And we all could use a creative friend at the end of the world!
Nice to be back, and see some old arts friends today as well. We picked up just where we left off in our stories (which are still odd tales)…as life should be. Also to enter with a monkey-clad ferris wheel celebrating one of the oldest and definitely best zoos in Europe felt specifically welcoming to me—combining creatures and child like wonder are two of my favorite things. At the center of the ferris wheel were images of kids playing with animals, my kind of symbol! Plus, this zoo is art, seriously! As is the train station of course.
Sorry to take photos of the normal, and myself (I was my only model to work with today-that will change tomorrow! One good thing about being your own model, is you work for free!) but I always see it best upon arrival. See people, places and things for the wonder they are, that is.
Sort of like seeing an old friend, you haven’t seen in a while. You see them almost as if for the first time again. Just this side of in between-as I often am in life! Like I said, i like the in betweens, i see the symbols clearest there! Tried to do only selfies today, tomorrow only doors. It’s good to make limits! Glad to be back with europe, an old friend!
“You are a gem in Him, so shine!”, I heard today as I came in. I often hear little words or word poems, as i come into regions or cities, or see old friends. So, I concur, as I am back in the diamond city again. Nice to see you again creative friend. Let’s play like the monkeys, otters and squirrels, like little kids in an enormous room! “Until we are what we really are.”
That was my little entrance prayer today anyway! Love you Europe despite ourselves. And in clear view also of what we are, and are becoming. I like how our stories intertwine at the heart. Just checking in on yours today, as I land into it!
(Written on napkins and receipts in travel. Thought I’d share it. Thanks for your patience and kindness. Let’s welcome one another as if we were forever.)

Hello again Europe,

Just checking the pulse of your heart! Glad to be back! I should address you more properly, but today i feel casual, thankful, awake and happy to see you again friend. Let’s just be ourselves with one another. I enjoy you. And I think we all need one another now.

We are all precarious right now, so let’s be kind to one another for another train ride or so….let’s share ferris wheels and zoos and things which remind us of life. I always love it, when we are alive together, just listening, beholding in thanks.

I always feel welcomed here. People whistle in Belgium-a good sign. I always notice that, and their curiosity about other. Talked to about ten people on the train up, and in several different languages. I like speaking other languages when jet lagged-makes it more poetic, and you don’t care as much about mistakes! The lady on the train held suitcases from sliding for a Spanish family, and the fellow across from me told me all his favorite spots and festivals, and invited me for dinner this week.

Kindness cannot be overrated in these days. Gentle curiosity in language and action. Tenderness, what a great state of being, even, is in short supply these days!

Once, my wife Amy fell off her bike here, literally nine people came to help, including an old man with a cane! Kindness combined with a curiosity about other are helpful attributes these days!

First things i always notice in belgium: people whistle, they don’t make straight lines, and they are genuinely curious about other. Makes sense Pieter Bos (the late nations theologian from Holland) called belgium, “creative friend”. Feels true to me at least. And we all could use a creative friend at the end of the world!

Nice to be back, and see some old arts friends today as well. We picked up just where we left off in our stories (which are still odd tales)…as life should be. Also to enter with a monkey-clad ferris wheel celebrating one of the oldest and definitely best zoos in Europe felt specifically welcoming to me—combining creatures and child like wonder are two of my favorite things. At the center of the ferris wheel were images of kids playing with animals, my kind of symbol! Plus, this zoo is art, seriously! As is the train station of course.

Sorry to take photos of the normal, and myself (I was my only model to work with today-that will change tomorrow! One good thing about being your own model, is you work for free!) but I always see it best upon arrival. See people, places and things for the wonder they are, that is.

Sort of like seeing an old friend, you haven’t seen in a while. You see them almost as if for the first time again. Just this side of in between-as I often am in life! Like I said, i like the in betweens, i see the symbols clearest there! Tried to do only selfies today, tomorrow only doors. It’s good to make limits! Glad to be back with europe, an old friend!

“You are a gem in Him, so shine!”, I heard today as I came in. I often hear little words or word poems, as i come into regions or cities, or see old friends. So, I concur, as I am back in the diamond city again. Nice to see you again creative friend. Let’s play like the monkeys, otters and squirrels, like little kids in an enormous room! “Until we are what we really are.”

That was my little entrance prayer today anyway! Written on napkins and receipts in travel. Thought I’d share it. Thanks for your patience and kindness. Let’s welcome one another as if we were forever.

I’m gonna go ahead and lean into what’s Always!

In the enormous room, we all actually live in already… What kept us from being is no longer in the atmosphere. We find ourselves uninterrupted! We frolic and enjoy one another’s becoming, as if the room never ended, and each moment were just a poem about the whole story. Read out loud without fear of rejection, or any hiding whatsoever!

We come out and dance, in the rhythms of ourselves with one another.

We know God is in the garden, and so, already seated at the table! We do not hide from ourselves or each other.

The enormous room is where we really live all the time already. So, we might as well get used to living in an unseen banquet room which never ends…just now, they are starting to read another poem!

We are not afraid to talk clearly with the waiter, the stewardess, the bill collector; because we know, they too, are already in the enormous room with us, and Christ is seated at the head of the table, enjoying us all in Love. For He is made of Love, and this is His room. And every other room is fading…

How a tree and each person I meet, have all their seasons within them, even now! We can go backwards and forwards as needed for our healing. We can revive Spring, if needed, or listen through and into the dark of Winter. We can join our future lives and speak Love over our whole story. Or we can begin in the present, and go back and care for our younger parts into their unique glory. In autumn, the trees also contain Spring. As do each of us, as we lean well into Love. The present spreads its’ Love in all directions, as needed…by Grace.
Do we trust Love to touch every season in us daily? There trees certainly do. Why not you?!

Oh, what The Father has up His enormous Sleeves for each of us!

A single conversation can become a whole garden when God is Present.

Entering Psalm 139 again today….
God wants to celebrate us through our identities! He likes to highlight identity, as part of His autobiography! It’s a statement about His story making, art making ability, when we start to wear our true names. It’s less about us than we think, but we get to play ourselves, while wearing Him!
Might as well yield to the Author, editor, and reader of the stories our lives actually are. Makes the pronunciation easier, and clearer. Reading Psalm 139 again today, the real version of the song of ourselves, where David celebrates Himself as a poem of God—wonderfully made. On one hand its a declaration of knowing ourselves, by knowing that we are fully known, even when we don’t know ourselves. On the other, it is a psalm of trust that the one who “digs” into us, knows us even as we sleep, and so is capable of causing us to stand into the contours of our true forever names. Great meditation, and great way to live, implied. It was nice to find out that it is also the favorite song of many rabbis throughout history! It’s basically formatted as an overheard prayer, a private spiritual moment between David and his God. Those are my favorite passages in the book, when we are overhearing other’s personal spiritualities. But this one has something for us all about celebrating the poetry we truly are becoming….from His rather than our perspective! Let God sing the song of yourself!

Marriage is a mystery novel worth reading, at least ours has been!
15 years ago this today, my love and I were united in Prague. We did a huge international arts installation in the backyard of dear friends, had a parade, were served tea by a white gloved gentleman in a play lot, and turned an international spiritual arts event into our wedding. Literally know one knew beforehand it was actually a wedding (but that’s another story). From there the new poem started.
We’ve lived everywhere since then, but the poem keeps being written where ever we roam. Thankful today to still be transforming with this remarkable gem and poem, poet, thinker, teacher, artist, and real woman of God.
Our audience for our wedding was international artists, church planters, writers, thinkers, dreamers, poets, singers (German opera), film makers, entrepreneurs, and leaders of all stripes and colors and languages-a banquet of creativity among the nations (my kinda party!). We were and are blessed by our funky global family, and our cloud of witnesses. Glad to still be becoming God’s art down here together!
Pictures later, as today, we are just giving Him room to celebrate this strange and beautiful conjoining of two oddly remarkable people. Who says artists and mystic types can’t get married? We did, and the collaboration keeps bearing fruity fruit! Although the poem we are together is slant, the lines are written in the ink of love from above. We couldn’t make up something this cool, strange and beautiful.
That day we (our anglican friend from England; and Reverend Sir Andrew Jones, whose home, hospitality and family, hosted this fine arts affair, offered the creative improved homily-which had some holy heat on it, not just because it was Summer! Angel slam poetry coming down on that altar of Grace!) read Jesus’ prayer for union for his followers-John 17 (one of my favorite passages in the book, where we are overhearing Jesus talking to His Dad on behalf of us; His prayer for unity and oneness.
We read it over and into us, and over our future hope for others as well. The mystical union of marriage is a mystery, worth deeply entering, a song worth becoming. We are thankful to have given Him room to form that cadenced, nuanced and uniquely shaped prayer in us over the years. We are still learning how to embody it more fully daily—“the pleasant lines of our inheritance” together.
But we, together, obviously bring God pleasure, and room to dream out loud, to make up new songs, and to improvise, and that makes me happy today. He wanted dance partners to collaborate with. And I think we’ve let Him lead!
And thankful for my love. His little funky temples us each, and together, an odd shaped sanctuary.. The new creation we are becoming together still ignites, excites, and surprises me!
Though of course, as someone said beforehand, “Marriage is also fellowship with His suffering for one another.” Good advice, though foreboding at the time. There are many types of death to self involved, required to “Give God room to form.” Another said; “Love is choosing to die daily.” Doesn’t sound inviting, but it is. For it, makes the best poetry. More like a gospel song.
Love is less an institution than an opportunity for mutual transformation daily. “It forces us to The Cross, more often daily; and God knows we need it!”
We’ve tried to allow inner room for that formation, through the poem of our marriage, over the years and among the nations, and cities we were planted. And I pray it’s fragrant lines bring people hope from time to time, like a good line in a poem returns at just the right instant as a joy seed.
So, thankful today for the poem we are becoming, and the lovely lines which have already been written and pronounced. Looking forward to reading the whole collection of poems at the end; enjoying it being written in the meantime! Good to have little bookmarks along the way! Happy anniversary to us today! Thanks God—we were a good idea!